Dalmain, tenderly. "You need to learn a
lesson about married life. True happiness does not come from marrying an
idol throned on a pedestal. Before Galatea could wed Pygmalion, she had
to change from marble into glowing flesh and blood, and step down from
off her pedestal. Love should not make us blind to one another's faults.
It should only make us infinitely tender, and completely understanding.
Let me tell you a shrewd remark of Aunt Georgina's on that subject.
Speaking to a young married woman who considered herself wronged and
disillusioned because, the honeymoon over, she discovered her husband not
to be in all things absolutely perfect: 'Ah, my good girl,' said Aunt
'Gina, rapping the floor with her ebony cane; 'you made a foolish mistake
if you imagined you were marrying an angel, when we have it, on the very
highest authority, that the angels neither marry nor are given in
marriage. Men and women, who are human enough to marry, are human enough
to be full of faults; and the best thing marriage provides is that each
gets somebody who will love, forgive, and understand. If you had waited
for perfection, you would have reached heaven a spinster, which would
have been, to say the least of it, dull--when you had had the chance of
matrimony on earth! Go and make it up with that nice boy of yours, or I
shall find him some pretty--' But the little bride, her anger dissolving
in laughter and tears, had fled across the lawn in pursuit of a tall
figure in tweeds, stalking in solitary dudgeon towards the river. They
disappeared into the boathouse, and soon after we saw them in a tiny
skiff for two, and heard their happy laughter. 'Silly babies!' said Aunt
'Gina, crossly, 'they'll do it once too often, when I'm not there to
spank them; and then there'll be a shipwreck! Oh, why did Adam marry, and
spoil that peaceful garden?' Whereat Tommy, the old scarlet macaw, swung
head downwards from his golden perch, with such shrieks of delighted
laughter, mingled with appropriate profanity, that Aunt 'Gina's
good-humour was instantly restored. 'Give him a strawberry, somebody!'
she said; and spoke no more on things matrimonial."

Myra laughed. "The duchess's views are always refreshing. I wonder
whether Michael and I made the mistake of not realising each other to be
human; of not admitting there was anything to forgive, and therefore
never forgiving?"

"Well, don't make it with Jim Airth," advised Mrs. Dalmain, "for he is
the most